


He Still Smiles

by Sorrowcult



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cancer, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 00:19:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16336142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrowcult/pseuds/Sorrowcult
Summary: Eiji has only a few months to live and Ash is selfish.





	He Still Smiles

Eiji was dying, he always knew he would but it seemed to come faster than he expected. He basically lived in the hospital now, it was easier for doctors when he was suddenly vomiting blood and it was easier for him too. He was very rarely asked the cause of his certain death but he must answer with the usual.

  
Esophageal cancer, stage four.  
He was underweight, he had long since gave up on ever feeling full again. He long since gave up on living to see his twentieth birthday. It was a sad truth, one he had grown to accept when he was first diagnosed at the age of seventeen. Many doctors and nurses thought it strange or sad that he wasn't scared of dying, but he knew the moment he was diagnosed that he was going to die. That's why he didn't take the chemo, what was the point of making himself suffer more?

  
There was a new nurse, his name was Ash and he looked very sad. Always sad, but he treated all of the patients with care and a smile on his face. His past was shrouded in darkness and he made few friends, even his acquaintances were few and far between. Some said he was an angel if only based off of his appearance. 

  
-

  
"Ash? Can you take room 1985A, the nurse that's usually there is on pregnancy leave." The head doctor told him, and Ash nodded. "Yes, I can get it done."  
They didn't really explain it, when you were a nurse taking a room that wasn't yours, and it often led to asking the patients themselves but to Ash, that just felt wrong. When he entered the room, he did not expect to see a boy so young. He was reading a book and the machines surrounding him made him seem smaller. He had messy black hair and wide, doe eyes. A smile graced his face.

  
"Did Miss Ann have her baby?" He asked softly, eyes searching Ash's face. The blond nodded and smiled. "She did- a baby girl." The boy smiled at that, and there was a distinct sadness to him. It was melancholy, it radiated off of him, it made you wonder if he ever quite knew true happiness.  
Ash knew, that just by looking at him, he would die. He was pale and the veins were visible through his skin.  
"My name's Aslan, I'll be your nurse for however long you'll be staying.." He went quiet for a moment before simply smiling at Ash, speaking softly. "My name's Eiji."  
-  
Eiji was polite and he had a tendency to forgot that he had a peg, which was a type of feeding tube that went through one's stomach rather than esophagus. It showed when he would pressed a hand over his stomach only to feel the insertion and jerk it away. Ash learned some things about him in the first week of knowing him. He used to be a photographer's assistant until his hands began to shake from all the medicine. His mum will still make his favorite food, if he asked, though he couldn't actually eat it. He liked his music soft and low, enough to hum along to and not overpower it.

  
He learned that he had gotten so used to vomiting blood and not actually eating real food, that he forgot what it was to feel full. Ash did not pity Eiji, but alas, he hurt his heart.

  
-  
A month passed and Eiji wasn't getting better and it was foolish for Ash to have even allowed the thought to cross his mind.  
"Ash?" The blond teen zoned back in and looked at Eiji, who was staring out the window. "Can we go into the garden?"  
"Of course."

  
Eiji was bundled up in a jacket and sweats, but he still looked cold. As they walked among the flowers and grass, he saw Eiji smile and it looked so fresh- so real.  
"It's been awhile.. Since I've felt the sun on my skin.." He reached towards a flower and smiled softly when his fingers brushed the delicate petals. "My immune system is so weak now, that.. I can't even get a cold." Of course, Ash knew all of these things but when Eiji said them, it somehow solidified it.

  
He couldn't even catch the sniffles, because they would kill him.

  
"Aslan.. Does that mean something?" Eiji asked as he stared up into the sky, the blue of it reflecting beautifully against the dark brown of his irises.  
"It means daybreak."  
"That's beautiful.. My name means "the second born one", which is weird because I'm the first born.." He mused aloud as he looked over at Ash.  
"You have a sibling?"  
"Yes, I do, a sister. She's turning 13 this year." Ash knew that Eiji would miss his sister's birthday. They continued their wondering when Eiji made Ash pause and he stared at him a little, eyes clouding over. "You look like an angel.." The words were whispered, for Eiji's ears only but Ash still heard him. Ash pulled out his phone and handed it to Eiji. "I know you aren't at your best but.. Would you like to take some pictures?" He watched as Eiji's eyes lit up and his smile widened cutely. "I'd love to."

  
-

  
The days since the one out in the garden, Eiji's condition had been worsening and the pain made him cry. Though, he did not seem distraught, he just seemed... ready.  
He told Ash so a few days later.  
"I'm.. I'm quite alright with dying now. It doesn't bother me- it never has and now that it's happening soon.. I suppose that this is the perfect time to go." Ash wanted to be selfish, he wanted to tell him that "no," he wanted to say "you can't leave now, not when I've just gotten the chance to know you."

  
Though, he just nodded slowly and left the room after he'd finished checking Eiji's vitals. He saw his friend, a fellow nurse, Shorter out in the hall but before he could speak, Ash was in his arms crying. "I can't save him, I can't save him, I can't save him.." He whispered the words repeatedly as he sobbed, unable to completely say how he felt other than guilty and angry at something he could not control.

  
-

  
When Eiji died, he merely closed his eyes, it seemed. He did not cry, he did not pray. He simply ceased to breath and then the moniter deadlined, a shrill wail that Ash would always associate with the dead boy before him. The one who would never make it to his twentieth birthday.


End file.
